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The DoctorWhen I was seven, I was diagnosed with emotions.The Doctor in Short Stories More Like This
"Poor girl." I heard them say. "She'll never survive this one."
I laid with my face towards the ceiling on the cold examination table, listening to them discuss my fate. I felt something breaking in my chest and something burning inside my throat. A small tear slipped down my cheek.
"Doctor! Look at this!" Shrieked my mother, "Something is coming out of her eye."
The doctor rushed over to me and wiped the tear from my cheek. He touched the top of my head as he whispered, "I am so sorry." And then he turned to my mother. "It's a tear. It means that she is sad."
"Sad?" My mother asked inquis
I'm Just Waiting for the RainHe keeps his umbrella close, but never opened. Storm clouds roll in and out of his life, but they never stop to even wet the ground.I'm Just Waiting for the Rain in Short Stories More Like This
He wakes up every morning at 6:15, stays in bed for another five minutes, and takes a shower that lasts eight and a half minutes. He eats two slices of buttered toast and a small tumbler of orange juice. He dresses himself in a blue button-down with a striped tie and shines his shoes so that he can see his face. If it's cold out, he wears his black trench coat and if it isn't, he just wears his sport coat. He carries his briefcase every day, along with his umbrella. He can't forget his umbrella. The train leave
FFM XXVIIIf she screams the loudest that means she cares the most. Beneath her weak chest, her heart palpitates and her lungs expand to the point of near eruption. She waves her hands and stomps her feet just like everyone around her, shaking the floor with the weight of a thousand booming steps.FFM XXVII in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Now, if only he would look at her.
ImpressionableYou left impressions in her skin and they sank straight down to her heart. You always told her that she was impressionable, but she never took it quite so literally.Impressionable in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
She was holding memories so tightly that her hands started to burn. Each day a layer of skin would char and crumble. She swept the ash off and carried on.
Sometimes when she felt lonely, she would take old blankets and wrap herself in them. They smelled like the people who used them before her. They have absorbed their dreams, their feelings, their hearts. She liked to hear other peoples' dreams because she never had one herself.
She never felt quite at home. She worried about
The Man in the Coffee ShopThe man who works at the coffee shop looks like you. I noticed this some time ago and have since frequented the place. He recognizes me now. He smiles at me when I come in. His smile even looks like yours. He doesn't say hey though- you always said hey.The Man in the Coffee Shop in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
I still work at the library even though you're not there.
Sometimes I look over to your desk and expect to see you typing at your computer, but someone else is there now. It's not you.
Sometimes someone will come in who looks like you. Maybe he will have the same hair, same stature, same profile, same laugh, same voice. It's never been you.
Sometimes I drive myself crazy. I pull at my hai
FFM VI (The Astronaut)I've always liked astronauts. There is a strange romanticism attached to someone who finds the entire world so mundane that they feel compelled to leave it behind. (I hear that the word mundane means "earthly." Figures.) They need more. They need the universe. They need everything that ever was and ever will be.FFM VI (The Astronaut) in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
My husband is an astronaut, and as a child, I wanted to become one too. I could leave my little world behind. But as I grew, my little world also grew, and I realized that there was more than enough to explore and discover on this planet. I had my love, the astronaut and we lived in a tiny, little house where I played wife and he pla
Ghost Fingerssongs drift slowlyGhost Fingers in Free Verse More Like This
from rooms filled with peeling wallpaper
sometimes i feel you wrapped around my heart
touching places you could never reach before
we have a story
worthy of a best-selling paperback
the kind of story
that's only sad when it belongs to you
i try to intertwine my fingers with yours
but it's not really the same
unless you're there too
Teacup FriendsWe brew cups of tea and remember them thirty minutes later. The water is still warm when we pull out the teabag, but the liquid is thick and smells bitter. We drink it anyway;the syrupy liquid coats our throats and stains our stomachs. We drink it anyway, since we took the time to make it.Teacup Friends in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
We figure they are like that; bitter, forgotten cups of tea that we invested so much time in making. (We even give them names: Earl Grey, Peppermint, Breakfast Blend, and Chamomile.)
Chamomile was the first to go, clipping the hair above his ears, buttoning himself up inside a black pea coat, tying it all up with a noose-like scarf around his neck.
Insid
Please Don't Leave MeShe flutters her fingers over her skin, she smiles as she thinks of him. He only touched her once, and it was when she brushed up against him on the train. She smiles as she remembers the way he muttered an apology. Her heart feels light as her memories play though her mind, changing bit by bit as they pass through.Please Don't Leave Me in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Please don't leave me.
She rides the train on Tuesday afternoons, because she ran into him once, several Tuesdays ago. She waits patiently at the station, hoping, praying that he will see him. She has the lines worked out in her head, hoping she will have the occasion to use them. She rides the bus day in, day out sitting in the
FFM XVIIt's only me left. I wish it could have been something cool, like from a sci-fi novel. In the end I would be saved by some kind-hearted scientist who manages to make fast-growing saplings from my seeds and then repopulate the entire grove. But this is not a sci-fi novel, and there will not be a happy ending.FFM XVI in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Half of this grove was gone with the sound of heavy machinery and a deafening crack of dry wood. No one put up a fight or showed any resistance to them. Trees don't cry. Not even when someone says something mean to them. Not even when they are lonely. Not even when a bulldozer runs them over.
I hope that when they do come for me, they w
UnattainableThose who are lucky enough to have friends are lucky indeed. For not everyone is so lucky.Unattainable in Emotional More Like This
It must be nice to have someone's shoulder to cry on. Someone you can bitch to; someone who'll hold you when you're hurt. Not everyone has someone like that.
Some of us just have friends, only a few, whom we call best friends, but they don't say such things in return do they? No, because we aren't their best friend, we're just a friend. Or worse that weird person they hang out with.
You see they have someone else that they uncover their heart and soul too. Someone they've known since they were children; or someone they met several years ago and becam
Drowning in Reverse x. I still have your phone.Drowning in Reverse in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
ix. The boardwalk carnival was shut down a few months later, roped off and boarded up like a condemnation of joy. The ferris wheel still rose high above the skyline, towering in silent reminder.
viii. The funeral was on a beautiful, balmy, sunny day and somehow that made it all the worse. The wind would pick up a little and ruffle your goldspun hair and I could hope, just for a moment, that you were still here.
vii. It was a cold, white room. I don't know why hospitals are so cold. Or maybe it was just me - maybe it was just me trying to siphon out all of my warmth and channel it into you.
vi. I didn't see the
Babydolls and RacecarsDear Rosie,Babydolls and Racecars in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
I have your baby doll. Give back my racecar or she gets it.
- Tommy
Dear Tommy,
Don't you dare hurt my dolly. Racecars are stupid anyway.
- Rosie
Dear Rosie,
Baby dolls are stupider. So I threw her off a bridge.
- Tommy
Dear Tommy,
Mommy got me a new baby doll because she loves me more than you. So there.
- Rosie
Dear Rosie,
I don't care. Daddy took me out for ice cream and then we went to the park to play catch.
- Tommy
Dear Tommy,
I don't like ice cream anyway. Mommy takes me shopping for pretty clothes and to get my hair done all the
SuperimposeHe doesn't look like a gymnast. He's all button down shirts and frazzled grey hair framing wire spectacles, a picture perfect professorial archetype down to the very tips of his frayed shoelaces. But he was a gymnast once, or so he tells us, and I believe him because he smiles like he knows something while he's chatting before class.Superimpose in Sketches More Like This
It's strange to see that image superimposed over the current one – the distinguished professor in pressed khaki slacks and a jacket, worn brown loafers exuding a faintly courteous manner (you can always tell them by their shoes), and a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand – versus the athletic ki
Summer Dreamsi. DaydreamsSummer Dreams in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
He slept his summers away. The soft rays of daylight never got their chance to meet his blue eyes, eyes as blue as the sky he never got to see. In his dreams he ran along cobblestone streets permanently bathed in dying twilight and watched the waves crash on white sand.
In his nightmares he stood in the rain and hid from the glare of neon signs advertising trivialities.
ii. The Clocktower
He stood on edges of high places to keep the sun in his eyes for as long as possible. Here he felt close to the sky. Here he could watch all of the faceless passerby.
Here he could feel infinite.
iii. Prelude to Autumn
Summer was life. Su
MP - Into LetterMy lovely Mentee(s),MP - Into Letter in Free Verse More Like This
i.
The aura of autumn
lies not in its loveliness,
but in the crunch of dried leaves
shuffled under sneakers
and crushed into dust.
ii.
A bite of winter
crept under my coat
and left a wound
in a place I can't reach
and a shard of ice in my heart.
iii.
I keep a reminder of spring
in my back pocket.
For when the ice gets too cold
and the winter too long,
I have a way back.
iv.
The last sigh of summer
smells like a lungful of sunshine
and cookie dough
just out of the oven
and left to cool on the stovetop.
v.
The death of a year
tastes bittersweet, tart.
Like a cold lemonade,
ice cubes and all,
m
Steam and CedarIt's raining,Steam and Cedar in Free Verse More Like This
and the pitter-patter on the shingles
matches the clackety-clack
from the railroad behind my house.
The train whistles;
my room fills with steam clouds
and the smell of cedar wood.
Or maybe that's the shingles again.
Hollow SuicideI love this world.Hollow Suicide in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
I love it even when it's so beautifully achingly lonely that I can feel the drum of my pulse throbbing just under my skin, a constant reminder of the hollow center the veins connect back to.
Sometimes I think I want to build my future in the forest because the trees are so lovely – but then I realize that I would be missing out on the vast, limitless blue expanses of oceanwater and the sound of the waves lapping at the shoreline. And then I think of the view from the mountains, or the honey-golden tones of the desert at sunset, the neon lights of the great cities, all the beautiful places in the world I have to choos
A Language of LightI read the cosmos in my spare time.A Language of Light in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
There's something strangely fascinating about space to me. Explorers look up and see directions, a gigantic cosmic map. Poets look up and see moonlight and dreams. Scientists look up and see mysteries to solve.
I look up and see black holes and infinite loneliness, but also magnificence and beauty. I look up and see the history of the universe stretched out like an open book written in a rare language, a language of light. A language written by stars and bound at the spine by gravity, illustrated by constellations and nebulae. A language I can read, but that only stars can speak.
Black holes are gaps in
InfernoSeptember is a sultry tangleInferno in Free Verse More Like This
of curly hair and corduroy jackets stretched
over broad shoulders that I've been leaning on,
metaphorically.
He won't press for answers
and I won't trouble him with my problems.
So he complains about the weather –
he's never gotten used to these sticky, southern delta summers –
while I hold the door
and press the call button.
The half-lit elevator drops us off above Dante's first layer.
I feel sorry for anyone beneath,
but I've indulgences to buy
and my own hell to return to.
But there's a light in my pocket –
abandon not all hope,
and
smile.
Gallery SpectersThe saddest thing on the internetGallery Specters in Free Verse More Like This
is a vast gallery of potential
untapped,
now a silent museum
with the occasional visitor
wandering by to marvel
before casually sending a llama
to an artist that isn't there.
The second saddest
is the comment section
of a profile page
whose top comment is a time capsule
to the year 2008,
left unanswered.
I'm coming out: I'm straight “Mom? Mum? Can I talk to you?”I'm coming out: I'm straight in Short Stories More Like This
My voice quivered. Both of them looked up at me. Mom’s head was in Mum’s lap. Mum was slowly stroking her forehead, leaning down to kiss her forehead while still staring at me intently. A satanic bible was placed in Mum’s lap, the thin, withered pages torn in a few places from continued reading. “You know you can talk to us about anything,” Mom said, smiling, sitting up a bit straighter. She leaned over to kiss Mum, who kissed her back. I took a seat on the couch and pulled my knees up to my chin, staring down at my cuticles. Even for a guy, they were pretty nasty.
I took
A Teen's Guide to SuicideHey, kids! Now, those of us over here in the government have noticed that the suicide rate has gone up 8% for you teens in the past year. Now, we know that life can be incredibly difficult (what with angsty teen drama, th need for high-end fashion and technology, and oh so difficult classes). Some us in the government – believe it or not! – actually understand your desire to kill yourself! Yep, that's right! We can relate to you!A Teen's Guide to Suicide in Short Stories More Like This
We remember times in our lives when we thought suicide was the only option. Now, looking at these scores, we realize that we're not the only ones in the country who have thought like this!
Did you know th
The Dream-Makers The clouds are beautiful today.The Dream-Makers in Fantasy More Like This
I watch them from behind someone’s eyelids as she sleeps beneath a tree with a book in her lap. For a while I imagine the way the trees must feel as the breeze sways them; I have not felt a true breeze in so long. And then I turn back to the depths of the girl’s mind and carry on with my work. After all, dreams do not create themselves.
I don my black shawl and turn to the little dream form of the girl. Falling into my character, I cluck my tongue and point at the forest that materializes in her subconscious. “Beware the monsters that live within the woods, my dear.”
“But
TransparencyThis is exactly what it is.Transparency in Free Verse More Like This
The yellow sand has scoured me completely clean,
and I am the clear black of obsidian -
a statue, hands raised.
I mean exactly what I say.
I am the night wind,
blue and cold enough
to sweep a chill over the day.
Spell me exactly the way I sound.
I am a twist on the tongue,
a green sapling digging its roots
into the brown peat.
Speak to me exactly as I am.
I am already boiled and bright and yellow -
a new-stretched canvas.
Breathe, and I breathe with you.
Mermaid SongI have tried to love you.Mermaid Song in Free Verse More Like This
But you have become
little more than an evening in pale watercolors—
the shadow of Monet.
I have decided to leave the lilies as they are.
Perhaps in later years, with desperation,
fearing the thinness of my thin limbs,
the creaking of my spider fingers,
I will go to wander those gardens again,
hoping for the promise of Eden,
clutching beads in my weary fist.
For now, you are fleeting as mermaid song,
brief as tall spires in pink and green beneath the sea—
I can never touch them.
Our connection fades,
a violet mirage
disappearing within the swells.
A wave breaks
Scout's HonorIt was some time during spring. I don't remember the particular day, the exact time.Scout's Honor in Short Stories More Like This
I do remember, however, that Abbi was wearing a sundress- she always wore them during warm weather- and that we were sitting on a cramped swing-glider. I had a camera with me, and she was reading Wuthering Heights. Her white-blue eyes scanned the worn pages, widening as if she had found something that surprised her (which was nearly impossible, as that must have been at least the twentieth time she'd read that book).
She was lying across the glider, her legs draped across mine. I stared up at the sky through my camera, sighing as another fluffy white cloud
Memories"Abbi don't!" I shouted, just before the hose drenched my church outfit. She giggled, and despite being miserable and wet, I smiled.Memories in Short Stories More Like This
Making her laugh always made me smile. Even as a seven year old.
"You're gonna get in trouble with Amma." Almost as if on cue, my grandmother came into the back yard. "Cole Jason Bartholomew!" she shrieked and when I pointed at Abbigale, she sighed. "Abbi Nicole Rose, what have I told you about picking on Cole?" She smiled innocently, her cheeks flushed with pink. "She wasn't picking on me." I pouted, crossing my arms. "Please, she could take you any day, Coley." Amma said lightly, stroking Abbi's h
Southern Hospitality "No mom, I'm fine, really." I insisted, balancing the phone between my cheek and my shoulder as I lifted another cardboard box.Southern Hospitality in Short Stories More Like This
"Nicole, I'm feeling very uneasy about this. I mean, a young girl, alone in a big house out in the country. Why couldn't Dexter be there tonight?"
I sighed, setting the box on the floor by my feet. "He's got one more meeting tomorrow morning, and then he's on the first flight to Georgia. I'm okay for one night, I promise. All I have to do is get my last two boxes in from the car, and I'm in for the night. Okay?"
"Well, okay. But just promise me to lock all the doors, and all the windows. It's a big
Take Me For a RideDarling:Take Me For a Ride in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Take me for a ride. Let me sit in your passenger seat, your partner in crime. Give me control of the radio, and let me find something we both can tolerate; or else something we both hate, and can laugh at, blasting it while we go. Let me be your navigator, getting us lost in the middle of nowhere. We can fight and yell and blame each other before we forgive and take it all as the grand adventure it's supposed to be. Let me get up to crazy shenanigans, making faces and distracting you. We'll be causing all sorts of trouble in the name of fun. And when it gets dark, let me sleep in the passenger seat, in my slumber entrusting you with
TrojanI sprint like a rogue virus through the city of ash-grey streets and neon-lit slums, the buildings looming out of the landscape like silicon blocks on a motherboard while roads dart and entwine between them, little channels of information and bursting light in this world of concrete and metal.Trojan in Short Stories More Like This
My transport was destroyed three blocks back so my feet rush across the road among swerving programs and protocols that yell at me with a chorus of horns as they tilt dangerously near to the pavement. But my mission's more important than these people: it's a poorer district and nobody in those is truly useful to the functioning of the city – repla
Polishing VenusI wear a blue plastic retainer at night. It's painful, tight on my teeth, as if my mouth has outgrown it. I don't put it in often enough, so the shape of my jaw twists and changes, until I remember how much I despised braces and consent to slip it in, and I lie awake at night, loathing the imperfection of my teeth and the ache that pulses there as my mouth readjusts to the wires and plastic that force my jaw into the correct position.Polishing Venus in Short Stories More Like This
I wear glasses too – ugly things, dark maroon on top, with a thin, squishy plastic wire on bottom instead of another rim. Not many people know I have them. When I was a kid, I had the rimless kind – s
Meaning of the MundaneShe sits in a tree overhanging a river. The thick branch slopes down over the water like a swing, bringing her pointed toes within grazing distance of the surface of the amber rushing stream of snow that has forgotten it should never take a tropical vacation and now pays for it with ceaseless travel. Emerald gold sunlight dapples her blotchy tan skin, drawing out the tints of red to her rich dark hair and the flashes of sapphire blue in her smoke gray eyes. She wears tank tops and denim shorts, hair pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck, forever shoeless. A clunky anklet made of lapis lazuli circles her left ankle, and she sits, oveMeaning of the Mundane in Short Stories More Like This
Skinny Jeans JackSkinny Jeans Jack's father is a cynical asshole who likes vegan cupcakes. He says he eats that fake food vegan crap out of concern for the animals and shit, and that he don't want to hurt Gaia, but Skinny Jeans Jack stole his medical records when he was working as secretary for the doc and found that the lying turd just can't eat gluten and dairy makes him gassy.Skinny Jeans Jack in Short Stories More Like This
"Can't trust my father," Skinny Jeans Jack tells me, taking a drag of his cigarette. His real name is Jasmine – his dad was drunk enough to make cows fly and high enough that the lights on the ceilings of the hospital were able to whisper the ghost stories of everyone who had k
The story of him and her.She knows how to express herself in more ways than one.The story of him and her. in Free Verse More Like This
She knows how to cry, how to hide and how to run.
What she doesn't know is how to feel love.
She's stuck in this nightmare she's unable to walk out of.
He is the helping hand she refuses to see.
Perfect is what, in his eyes, she'll always be.
He'll always be there to collect the pieces.
He won't give up, even if the hopelessness increases.
Love exists, he believes, he knows.
Broken hearts are real, she knows, she shows.
He knows her scars are impossible to undo.
But he won't give up, he won't give in, his love is true.
Sta.sh
